Of Popcorn and Hot Chocolate
by hollyg20
Summary: One-shot! Mia stays over at Lilly's but ends up with Michael when she can't sleep. Where is this new friendship headed and WHAT'S with the title! Please R&R!


Okay, so this is my first time taking a stab at a fanfiction _not _dealing with Harry Potter, so I'm kind of scared! Other than that, you obviously read the summary and decided to read this, so...read on! And review!

Oh, and I don't own the PD characters (obviously), Hershey's (even more obviously), and the Cheshire Cat (I believe that's Disney). If I owned all that I'd be rich and not writing fanfiction.

**Of Popcorn and Hot Chocolate**

Okay, so maybe I'm a princess…but does that mean things have to be _that _much harder for me than for everyone else? I mean, come on! I have to deal with the same things as every other teenage girl, but with the added bonus of everyone watching me do it! Take for instance the Cultural Diversity Dance, right? You'd think for once that something was going my way - I was going with Josh, I looked totally awesome in my dress, and Grandmere was on my side for once. So what happens? Josh orders me meat, forces a kiss on me in front of a bunch of reporters, and I was alone.

Well, except for the fact that I wasn't really alone. Michael stayed with me and sort of helped me cope. Michael Moscovitz! I could just die. I mean, Michael is hot. More than that…he's _really _hot.

"Mia!"

I was shocked out of my reverie by Lilly, who was sitting on the opposite side of the couch. She threw a piece of popcorn at me as she screeched my name (I may love her, but Lil _definitely _does not have what teachers refer to as an 'inside voice'), and aside from the fact that she has no aim whatsoever, managed to hit me in the corner of the eye. I was so surprised by the combination of events that I tumbled sideways off the couch and hit the floor with a loud thud.

"What was that for?" I asked as I tried to rub the salt from the popcorn out of my eye.

Just then, as I was still sprawled out on the floor, I saw Michael walk in the room. "Hey, Thermopolis. Lookin' good." He smirked at me and I realized he wasn't wearing a shirt. Again. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Far from it, actually. It's just that I'd prefer to _not _be lolling about on the floor with one squinty red eye when he walked in topless, that's all.

"Get out of here, Michael!" Lilly yelled. "And put a shirt on! Mia doesn't want to see that!"

Wait a minute…did she just say I don't want to see that? Because I do! But I guess I can't really tell my best friend that I do, in fact, drool over the sight of her scantily clothed older brother.

"Chill out, Lil. Mia's old enough to speak her mind, don't you think?" He winked at me as he said that. Michael Moscovitz just winked at me. Yeah, he definitely is hot. Unfortunately for me, he did take Lilly's advice and left the room.

"You know what? I don't think I'm up to finishing this movie. Let's just go to sleep," Lilly suggested. Well, one doesn't argue with Lilly, especially me, so we got ready to go to sleep. Except that I wasn't really ready to go to sleep, so while she snored away, I thought about everything that was keeping me awake. Like Michael.

I'm not really sure when this all started happening. I'm not even sure he thinks of me as anything other than his sister's friend…but he is tutoring me in Algebra and hung out with me at the dance, which he definitely didn't have to do. The problem being that I'm falling in love with him, seriously! And I'm not sure what to do about it, because it's not like I can just walk up to my best friend's brother and tell him that I love him - just like I can't tell Lilly that he's hot. I'm in a bad situation here.

"Psst…Mia." At first I thought I was hearing things, but then I heard, "Mia," again, coming from the direction of the doorway. I sort of turned over in my sleeping bag and saw Michael standing there with a mug in his hand. He motioned with his hand for me to follow him, so I did.

We padded along the hallway to the kitchen where he had another mug on the counter and a saucepan on the stove. "Hot chocolate?" he offered. I looked at him in surprise. "I like it when I can't sleep. Usually by the time I make it and drink some of it, I'm ready to go back to bed."

My god. Now he cooks? Well, not really _cooks_, but hey, hot chocolate is good enough for me! "Yeah, thanks," I replied, still kind of wary of the situation. I know me and Michael got along okay and hung out together occasionally without Lilly, but it usually involved Algebra or me in a really embarrassing situation. Unless he was still thinking about me on the floor in the living room.

He handed me the mug that was in his hands when he came to the den and went back over to the counter. He grabbed the second mug, squirted some Hershey's syrup into it, poured the milk from the saucepan on top of that and stirred. I was so busy watching 'domestic Michael' that I forgot the mug in my own hand.

"Drink up before it gets cold, Thermopolis."

"Thanks, Michael. Um…how did you know I wasn't asleep?"

"Just had a hunch. Plus you weren't snoring like usual, so I figured you had to be awake."

I cast a horrified glance at him. I was a _snorer_! Is snorer even a word? It doesn't matter, because Michael has heard me snoring for years and I didn't even know about it!

"Kidding, Thermopolis. You don't really snore." I breathed out a sigh of relief. "Well, that I know of, anyways."

Somehow that didn't make me feel as good as it should.

"Drink!" he commanded me. I was going to start saying that I didn't really think he should order me around, but then I realized that I didn't really have a problem with it. He was kind of cute when he pretended to be bossy. I lifted the mug to my mouth and took a sip…he really could make some hot chocolate. Okay, so it's not exactly hard, but whatever.

"This is pretty good, Michael."

"I've had lots of practice." Why would he have had lots of practice? He said he only made it when he couldn't sleep. What keeps Michael Moscovitz awake all the time, I wonder.

Then he smiled at me and stood up. "C'mon, there's something I want to show you."

I was hoping he was going to take me to his room and play me another song, but then he started leading me towards the door. Was he kicking me out? I didn't even have shoes on!

He pushed the door open silently and led me out onto the porch. It was snowing and I was in pajamas, so yeah, it was pretty cold. "Don't you just love how clean and new everything looks when it snows?" Uh, did he just say that? It was such an un-Michael like thing to say. I spent a while contemplating where it came from and then decided I didn't care. So I just nodded.

"Hey, you're cold," he said. _Really_! I mean, I was only wearing a long sleeved shirt and pajama pants…it could be worse, but could be a lot better. Like having a jacket or maybe even _shoes_ for instance. I didn't actually say these things, of course, but just nodded again.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside. We walked in silence back to the kitchen and I made a beeline for the hot chocolate he had made earlier. He came up behind me and started rubbing my arms to warm me up.

"I'm sorry. I didn't even think about you being cold. I go out there all the time," he explained. Like I even cared. As long as he kept doing whatever he was doing to my arms he could take me out in snowy, below zero weather anytime.

"It's okay. It really was beautiful. I always forget how nice even the city can look when it's covered in snow."

_Oh my god. I hope he doesn't stop doing this, because my heart is beating faster by the minute, _I thought.

"Mia, you have goose bumps," he noted. "Are you still cold?"

Cold? Am I cold? Actually, I'm not sure. I can't think much of anything right now. "Uh, not cold so much, no."

"Oh." He seemed kind of disappointed and I wasn't too sure why.

"Um, maybe a little bit. Yeah, it's kind of chilly in here." I didn't know if that would make him feel better, but apparently it did, because he got a big smile on his face and I thought he was going to rub my arms again, but then he walked around to the side of me and pulled me out of the chair instead.

He just stood looking down at me while we were only inches apart. _Oh, what is he doing?_ I asked myself. Not that it really mattered, because one of the arguably best looking guys I knew was standing in such close proximity to me that thought was futile. My brain wasn't working properly at all.

And then it happened. It seemed like a second and ten minutes all at once when I realized it was happening. He leaned down lower and lower until our lips met in a light kiss. He tasted like chocolate. I didn't want the kiss to end, but all the sudden I heard a rather loud cough coming from the direction of the kitchen door.

Great. All I needed was for the Drs. Moscovitz to walk in the kitchen in the middle of the night when I should be asleep in the den with their daughter and instead I'm kissing their son. But when I finally turned around, it was Lilly standing there, arms crossed, and an unreadable look on her face. God, that was even worse.

I looked at Michael and he shrugged. We both looked back to Lilly and she started to grin slowly. She looked like the Cheshire cat, I swear, and that isn't particularly as funny as it sounds - actually, it was downright scary.

"So," she stated. "I was wondering where Mia had gone, so I came out to look for her. And here she is…with you." She moved her eyes over to Michael who started to fidget nervously under his sister's gaze.

"Yeah, Mia and I couldn't sleep, so I made us some hot chocolate."

"I see you found something far more interesting to do, though," she said, glancing at the only half empty mugs on the table.

Where is my voice? I can never stand up to anyone, not even Lilly! Actually, Lilly most of all, because truth be told, she frightens me more than anyone, even if she is my best friend.

I could feel her looking at me and for the life of me I was not going to look up. Nope, not going to look at her.

"It's okay," she said simply. My jaw nearly hit the floor and I forgot I wasn't going to look at her. My eyes shot up to where she was standing. "I was wondering when that was going to happen. Now I know."

Then she walked out. I swear, Lilly walked out on something that could have been the confrontation of the _decade_. And she lives for that stuff! I turned around and saw Michael looking just as confused as I was.

"What was _that_ all about, Mia?" Michael asked, incredulously.

"I have no idea."

Suddenly, I realized he had been calling me Mia instead of his usual Thermopolis. What did that mean? Along with that kiss - things were starting to get very odd around the Moscovitz household.


End file.
